Context: SDG 15 (Life on Land) and SDG 14 (Life Below Water). Numerous urgent issues regarding the Amazon rainforest are frequently in the media, and the Amazon region is part of the national curriculum. During the dry season, the Amazon region faces limited transportation, lack of potable water, water pollution, reduced fish populations, and mobility challenges. Additionally, students considered the effects of these issues on local residents, indigenous peoples, and biodiversity.

 

Technology: AI was employed to create a mental map of problems, a conceptual map of potential risks, and an investigation map of key points, issues, and suggestions. The resulting maps were discussed with the community, leading to a list of actions decided by the members. This information was then made available for students to prepare a blog post on “Science in the News” for a website or social media campaign.

CARE: This iterative method helps students formulate differentiated questions about real-life issues that have significant implications for them. This process aids in framing, generating ideas, and evaluating questions.

KNOW: Students are encouraged to assess, link, and support claims based on evidence with convincing arguments and substantial evidence. They use AI to facilitate discussions on academic publications, online databases, government reports, and statistics. Their investigations are further supported by expert-recommended references for in-depth exploration within their communities.

 

DO: Students co-create a research agenda and launch a campaign for action. Setting the agenda is crucial, as it involves deciding on priority issues that shape the direction and focus of government action. AI can also be used to review communication strategies.

Co-authorship: Students produce an AI-based investigation map and write a text for the school’s blog or website.

Artefact: The AI mapping tool Whimsical (Fig. 3) was used with the students for brainstorming topics of interest. They started by generating keywords or phrases and then used AI to connect more ideas. This mental map facilitated collaboration among students, allowing them to evaluate and summarize ideas. They presented their findings, which were voted on by the local community in the Amazon. The text using the map was described with the help of AI.

Socioscientific Considerations: Throughout this process, socioscientific considerations regarding the use of AI were emphasized. Discussions focused on its role in facilitating brainstorming sessions, encouraging research using primary sources, and supporting responsible use of AI. Ethical considerations and integrity were also integral parts of these discussions.

Teacher Outcomes: The AI activity promoted greater student engagement, facilitated participation from quieter students, and those less accustomed to interacting with the group and teacher.

Student Outcomes: Students expressed an emotional connection to the drought situation in the Amazon, a greater interest in understanding the causes and effects of the drought, strong curiosity about AI, and increased participation and practice in questioning, argumentation, analysis, synthesis, and improved oral and written communication skills.

Care:

Greece is dealing with some serious climate issues lately. Students are seeing more heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires, all made worse by climate change. The Mediterranean area, where Greece is, is especially at risk. During the summer of 2021, there were huge wildfires that destroyed forests, homes, and people’s lives.  Students considered weather forecasting  important for various reasons:

• Disaster Prep: Knowing the weather in advance helps us get ready for extreme events like heatwaves, storms, and wildfires, making them less deadly and damaging.
• Farming: Farmers need weather forecasts to decide when to plant, water, and harvest their crops.
• Public Safety: Forecasts help keep people safe by warning us about extreme temperatures and bad air quality.
• Tourism: Tourism is a big deal for Greece’s economy, and weather conditions can seriously affect it. Good forecasts can make sure tourists stay safe and have a great time.

Know: Students conducted a research project on meteorology, focusing on cloud classification and weather systems. They learned that Luke Howard introduced the three main cloud types—cumulus, stratus, and cirrus—in 1803, and in 1918, it was discovered that weather changes are caused by the interaction of warm and cold air masses.

Do: Using AI, the students classified clouds into 10 subcategories based on altitude. They trained a neural network with photos of different cloud types, testing its accuracy with new images. The project included developing a mobile app for cloud identification and correlating the AI predictions with data from their school’s weather station to forecast local weather

AI for SDG 13: Climate Action

Findings related to the Open Schooling approach: The activities carried out during the implementation of the Connect project were included in the upper secondary curriculum – Information Technologies (IT). We can also mention that the materials provided were useful in preparing and implementing lessons with students. The topic addressed was also relevant and innovative from a scientific and educational point of view, being debated globally. Thus, students had the opportunity to know and experience individually the ways in which they can get involved in predicting weather and support climate action enhanced by Artificial Technologies.  Open schooling was found useful  for other teachers because students  focused on activities connecting various subjects supported by transdisciplinarity approach and an exchange of good practices can be made between teachers who have implemented in different schools who want to join us.

Student achievements: Students were enthusiastic to participate in volunteering and greening activities where they could observe, for example, classification of clouds, how to use drones, and develop a learning machine system trained to examine photos and classifying images. This process helping to plan better interventions for climate change and improve quality of life. 

The students involved have formed their scientific research skills, actively participating in the realization of projects and studies on Artificial Intelligence, being able to apply the knowledge learned after going through the support materials coding and using ML for kids tool.

CARE:  High engagement in the lesson, especially in following up reflections from the videos about microplastics, and group work designing their solution

Students were asked to interact with their families. They were invited to implement Holiday research into their single plastic usage.   Most children did not complete this however they had access to the resources required

KNOW: Students had an opportunity to learn from scientists through Video built into the lesson about researcher in microplastics. Increased understanding of microplastics and their impact on the planet, inc in the food chain.

DO: Some great group discussions and problem solving about capturing microplastics. Some interesting reflections and facts about our impact on the Earth and how we might mitigate this.

Findings: Some of the slides needed a little more background to them to make them wholly relevant, especially for KS3 students, for instance the slides on plastics and oceans.
It would have been nice to have a link to a video about how plastics are collected in the sea as there are some great examples of the boon being used.

They link nicely into the Materials chemistry curriculum which we happened to be teaching at the time, hence our choice of this lesson to teach.
The resources were good but needed a little tailoring in order to be really classroom-ready.

Outcomes: Appreciation of the difficulty of tackling plastic usage because of its pervasiveness in everyday life and the size of microplastic samples.
Understanding of some of the technology that can be used to tackle the problem.

I built in two practical activities: one demonstrating bioaccumulation and how plastics mount up as they pass through the food chain. Another looking at filtering of microplastics by using glitter in water. Both increased engagement and provided a tangible angle for students to link to.
I also showed them a laundry bag that I use for my plastic clothes (nylons, polyesters etc) that catches microplastic fibres and stops them from entering the water in the washing machine. We discussed which one would be easier to use: a filter on the machine or a bag around the clothes.
There was not enough time to go into the scale of microplastics in great detail, although for the Y8 students that we taught, this would have required too much broader knowledge to be easy to deliver straight away.

Forty-six students contributed to the open schooling research questionnaires. All of them mentioned that they would like to do more activities like this one. Most students practiced various skills including discussions and developing a project. They liked doing practical activities, working with friends and learning about microplastics.

More details of our report: on this link.

 

 

CARE: Excellent!  High level of students’ participation. Students were very engaged.

KNOW: Students were in contact with scientist through video link provided

Calculations converting units with guidance from the task sheet

DO: Students with families were involved with the design of filter and reducing the use of plastic and providing suggestions

Findings: Time was an issue as I had to give some of the activities as home learning.

I was ambitious trying to finish in 90 mins

Outcomes:   Nicely with all the skills embedded

All the skills covered . Literacy, numeracy , team worker etc

 

Fifty- five students contributed to the open schooling research questionnaires. All of them mentioned that they would like to do more activities like this one. Most students practiced various skills including discussions and developing a project. They liked to work with the microscopes, doing the practical, and seeing the experiments reactions.

More details of our report: on this link.

CARE: Students were not aware faecal transplant existed. This attracted their curiosity and interest with need to know more about the topic to make decisions.  Students were engaged with families and communities through newsletter and twitter

KNOW: This also developed their knowledge from GCSE Biology Organisation – Digestion Topic. The curriculum link was the role of bacteria in the digestive system. It also was designed to teach students how to be critical about the results from scientific studies.

All students were asked to review the reliability of sources and present a 5 min oral presentation on what they found out.

DO: Students worked together in groups of 3 to create a 5 min oral presentation giving their friend advise, with reasons for their opinion.

Findings: It fits in very well with AQA Biology Topic 2 Organisation – Digestion.

Outcomes: No problems apart from students’ confidence in presenting to the whole class.

Some suggestions for teachers are to give students information on how to plan a presentation, give them a template to complete.

Fifty students contributed to the open schooling research questionnaires. Most of them mentioned that they would like to do more activities like this one. Most students practiced  various skills including discussions and research. They liked to work in groups with friends, practical activities and doing research.

More details of our report: on this link.

CARE: students were very involved with the activity and I would have liked to have had more time.  It worked well for sowing the seeds of curiosity, they were very engaged

KNOW: The activity helped to increase their confidence in science; however the challenge was the  time limit. To help teaching the lesson can be delivered in 3-4 lessons and students can do task 1 of the DO stage at home.

DO: The activity asked students to:

Task 1: Calculate the efficiency of three different solar panels.

Task 2: Design a fundraising page for an energy-saving device

It was noticed the importance of having the required level of skill to adequately access the outcome task. Some suggestions for helping students are to:

Model how to calculate the efficiency of one solar panel, that they can do the others.

Make sure this Science Action is used after teaching about energy transfers and efficiency so students have required background knowledge.

Findings: The activity support students learning and it fit well with the curriculum. The topics related to the curriculum are energy transfers and wasted energy.

Outcomes: Meaningful discussions about Energy savers and research skills developed.

Teachers can further expand student outcomes by getting students to find out about real engineers who have designed energy saving devices. Students can also design their own devices.

Fifty students contributed to the open schooling research questionnaires. They mentioned that they would like to do more activities like this one. Most students practiced  various skills including discussions and asking questions. They liked to work in groups with friends, practical activities, doing experiments and becoming more confident.

More details of our report: on this link

CARE: students were very engaged with the activity,  Most were interested and involved to discuss the issue about the controversial use of faecal transplants. This activity was designed to attract students’ attention, curiosity and interest by using this new and unusual medical procedure.

KNOW: Some were able to critically evaluate the data e.g. if it was a double blind trial how did they get the figures. The link with the curriculum was the role of bacteria in the digestive system, a statement from the English KS3 National Curriculum.

DO: They learnt more about looking at the evidence/data/articles than the actual science behind poo transplants. Some did not like the idea and this affected their participation.

Some recommendations for teachers are to involve a scientist who works in the field of gut microbiome who can explain the importance of research into this area. Students could also find out about other medical procedures to treat obesity.

FINDINGS It filled the lesson, a little hard to follow at first and a lot of photocopying.

OUTCOMES: Didn’t fit into our scheme of learning so was done as a one off lesson.

Forty-five students contributed to the open schooling research questionnaires. They mentioned that they would like to do more activities like this one. Most students practiced various skills including discussions and developing a project. They liked to work in groups with friends, doing the practical activities and using the Bunsen burners.

More details of our report: on this link.

CARE: High engagement, students very interested in the topic and for many their first experience of learning about how science in the real world is tested. Students had the opportunity to make connections between science learned in the school to support in real-life decision making.

KNOW: Some great discussion about the validity of sources, students willing to argue for their opinions using evidence. Students use their knowledge of the digestive system, and the enquiry skill of judge quality of sources.

DO: Idea of valid evidence, placebos, range, sample size all beautifully covered in a way that made it much more impactful than a lab practical.

FINDINGS: Very little prior knowledge of how science works. Needed more than an hour. It fits in more with what we teach at ks4.

OUTCOMES: I don’t think they fit with the curriculum content that we teach, but it built on it beautifully and was much richer and extended and deepened thinking to make what we do teach more relevant.

Fifty- three students contributed to the open schooling research questionnaires. They mentioned that they would like to do more activities like this one. Most students practiced  various skills including discussions and developing a project. They liked to use the Bunsen Burner, performing the experiments and work in groups with friends.

More details of our report: on this link.

Care: The activities involved students. They were engaged with the content.  Some parents did not want to/appropriately take part however surprisingly a lot did. So students had the opportunity to engage with conversations about science – rewilding with their parents/carers, grandparents and siblings, including a vote system to collect opinions from different people about which animal should return to the environment.

Know: Students were able to understand the benefits and the risks when making a decision and using a theory. They analyse data that they investigated and discussed about the animals, and they increased their understanding about the how small chances (such as returning back to the environment) can create large implications (bring back the balance in the ecosystem to impact on biodiversity). They were able to improve their knowledge about ecosystems, food web and interdependence.

Do:  All student took place in a group that gave presentations and then the best of the classes presented in front of the whole year group a more in-depth presentation of their project. A scientist  from Chester Zoo evaluated the presentations and provided comments.

Findings:    The resources where very good for meeting needs; however some the images thrown together created a lot of amusement rather than being thought evoking.

Outcomes:   Some students were confident in making claims using evidence, but others need more support. The activity fitted well in the curriculum. There were various students who  struggled with the time aspect of the lessons as well as developing  the knowledge and preparing their communication to present within a single lesson.

Care: Students were involved in this activity. They were asked to show what they discussed with their family. It was possible to confirm Visible discussions seen with their family. However, there were 50% of the class who were not able to show that their families were involved. It was not possible to see any evidence of discussion for various reasons.

Know: Students interacted with a STEM professional from Colchester Zoo who supported the open schooling activity by judging the presentations

Students demonstrated their knowledge with Heated debates for how animals interact with the food web. Students got very involved in class discussions and debates throughout the 8 lessons.

Do:  Students presented their rewilding projects using data and facts. Scientists evaluated the presentations and provided their comments. We could not complete the lessons in 8 lessons due to lack of background knowledge and had to reinforce the basics (eg. food chains before food webs).
Therefore, we could not complete the beaver lesson due to time constraints on the SOW. However, students seemed to be okay with final presentations and were happy with research, analysis and presenting.

Findings:   This open schooling project worked very well. No issues with completing specific activities. All activities are easy to follow and carry out.

The biggest issue was how to differentiate effectively to the very low ability students. All other students had no issues with the knowledge they were acquiring. However, lowest ability students were not even able to grasp food chains and use the key words. Personally, I was able to differentiate for these pupils by providing alternative worksheets I had made.

Most resources met our needs.
However – not enough resources for low ability students. This is fine though as teachers can source these depending on the group.

Outcomes:  High degree of student involvement. The whole class really enjoyed it. Very engaging, promoted discussion and lots of questions. Great for motivation and exctement about science.

The final task of a Presentation would have taken several lessons to complete, which we didn’t have so instead they made a persuasive poster to display on the science noticeboard.

Students:

• Developed the skill of research, analysing data and presenting skills.
• Developed social skills with use of group work.
• Developed critical thinking skills from the evaluation and voting – including the skill of justification.

All students in class were motivated to complete work and engaged. No issue with motivation.

Care: Students were intrigued by the resources including the videos about the topic. They were very motivated to solve an issue about biodiversity affected by human actions and climate change. They discussed about which animal should return back to the UK natural habitats such as beavers, wolves, and lynxes to improve the ecosystem and the biodiversity using a voting system.

Know: Students learned about food web and ecosystems. They also researched about natural habitats for these animals. They practiced scientific thinking and data analysis skills including graphs in maths, data in science, geographic information and scientists’ articles on the web about animals’ habitat and behaviour.

Do: There were some very good class discussions generated by the resources, specifically on rewilding of beavers and wolves in this topic. Students were able to disagree and make salient points against each other without taking things personally or arguing. Families discussed the various options for rewilding. This was a successful homework. Students shared questions, created influential presentations using data and facts. Scientist judged the presentations of the best class groups and provided feedback.

Findings:   The open schooling activity was useful for students’ engagement and meaningful learning. The ideas of food webs, food chains etc. fit well within the y7 curriculum. Very few were outside the curriculum.

Outcomes: Some students understood the topic well already, but links to real world idea cemented the topic very securely.

For lower ability the evidence-based task was difficult to deliver to retain attention.

For higher ability (at our school) very well. For lower ability more differentiation and other ways of delivering are required.

Care: Students were engaged in discussing how to protect the environment by bringing back extinct UK wild animals such as wolves and bears to their natural habitat.  Participants were 30 students who contributed to discussions about which animal to rewild and prepared a campaign to persuade the public of the benefits of rewilding.  

Know: They used knowledge about interdependence and ecosystems. They also used geographic knowledge information about natural habitats for these animals. The skills that students practiced were devising questions, visual communication, data analysis and the enquiry skill of weighing up evidence to support a claim. They also used maths skills to prepare graphs and geographic information about habitat.  

Do: Students shared questions, created persuasive posters and practiced argumentation using data and facts. They were all engaged with the activities, and they enjoyed researching information and making decisions. They were keen to discuss the evidence for their chosen animal during the campaign. Students were interested in and confident in using science knowledge.  

Findings:  

Students were keen to discuss the evidence to support claims for their chosen animal during the campaign. It fitted the curriculum well and the video clips were very good. The children enjoyed it and actually wanted to know if it ‘was real’. Teacher said “ I think some thought that their votes would genuinely count towards initiated a rewilding of their animal. Having a scientist Zooming in gave the project some credibility and they were engaged by this.” 

Outcomes: The teachers reported that students were keen to discuss the evidence for their chosen animal during the campaign. All were engaged with the activities, and they enjoyed learning science. 

Ten students, between the ages of thirteen and fourteen, contributed to this open schooling research questionnair. Most students said that learning science will be useful in their daily lives, as well as that they feel confident using science to come up with questions and ideas, in addition, all of them said that they think learning science is fun. The data collected also shows that almost half of the students don’t feel confident with their knowledge in science.

More details of our report: on this link.

Care: Rewilding was introduced as a problem to engage students and encourage discussion about how to protect the environment by reintroducing lost animal species back to ecosystems. The activities were developed with a researcher in Science and the schools’ Biology teachers. Participants were 30 students who contributed to discussions about rewilding and planned a campaign to persuade the public of the benefits of rewilding different animal species.  

Know: to decide which animal should be reintroduced, they learned and applied knowledge about ecosystems and interdependence as well as practicing devising questions, visual communication, data analysis and the enquiry skill of weighing up evidence to support a claim. They also used maths skills to prepare graphs and geographic information about habitat.  

Do: Students interacted with family members to vote on the animal to be rewilded and prepared a persuasive poster using argumentation skills based on data and facts. 

Findings: The “weigh evidence to support a claim” was tricky for lower ability pupils to fill in. They had great difficulty distinguishing between a SCIENTIFIC QUESTION and a CLAIM. The activities were useful to identify that some students need more support to analyse data. Their ability to use i-pads to do further independent research on each animal was useful. The information sheets were clear although they had difficulty in analysing the scatter graph. Lack of time was a factor due to curriculum pressures and impending exams. The final presentation task would have taken several lessons to complete, which wasn’t possible, so they adapted the materials and instead made a persuasive poster to display in the Science department.  

Outcome: The teachers reported that they felt the objective to improve students’ interest and confidence in science was met very well and the children were interested in the context.

Ten students, between the ages of thirteen and fourteen, contributed to this open schooling research questionnair. Most students said that learning science will be useful in their daily lives, as well as that they feel confident using science to come up with questions and ideas, in addition, all of them said that they think learning science is fun. The data collected also shows that almost half of the students don’t feel confident with their knowledge in science.

More details of our report: on this link.